DM's What's the most overengineered thing you've done in your campaigns?

[@dannybob42]

'A combination of soccer and football' My English brain for 2 seconds: ???

[@rage_2000]

Me too, and I’m not even British

[@Desecrated_E]

Sootball you kick ash to win kick the ash ball as far as you can without the ball disintegrating

[@happyslapsgiving5421]

I understood what he meant, but my brain immediately went to "calcio fiorentino". Which is football (the real one) + rugby + MMA.

[@ala5530]

I worked up a full set of rules for setting up, investing in and running trading ventures across a continent, complete with currency exchange rates, average shrinkage for customs, risk of banditry or piracy on any given route, risk of monster attack, travel times between the major locations by any given mode of travel, differing inflation indices based on local conditions... So far, you know what I've got to use? The wholesaler's price chart. Once. And they gave away the entire shipment to charity (okay, and used the goodwill generated to set up a spy network, which I'm sure might become useful if they hadn't then wound up three provinces away...).

[@CoyoteGris]

I saw a Homebrew CLASS in Drivethru, I got it and worked like a week to reduce that entire class into an Artificer Subclass, one of my players pick it up and was so overwhelmed by the options that he just specialized in one weapon. (it was sort of an energy weapon maker, by using stones with energy he can summon any weapon, and each weapon has its own skills, I think its called "The Sculptor" if you want to search the class)

[@nobodyshome6792]

Aside from full WORLDBUILDING (history to the beginijg of life).... Intelligent items. Who they were, how they became an item, whether they were alive before becoming the item itself. Full and complete backstories, including how they became "who" they are as the item. It adds depth to the game. People seem to enjoy that.

[@Tototoron]

Made my entire campaign idea with ideas, factions, and important characters in mind instead of just asking the players if they wanted to play a good or evil game 😂 gave the enemies more depth at least when they chose the standard good lol

[@chadstinson9886]

Matt M. "Everything I do"

[@spartanhawk7637]

Not a DM, but my party once infiltrated a cathedral in a Warhammer 40k game via four separate entrances at once. My character went in through the basement, two different mercenaries entered through the windows, the redemptionist (basically a barbarian with a chainsaw) entered via the front door, and the group’s assassin provided sniper cover from the neighboring rooftops. Almost everyone wound up dying but it was the most cinematic battle the table ever saw.

[@captainrail88]

I designed and mapped a solar system with a planet which is actually a constructed starship. Think death star but planet instead of a moon and an arc instead of death ray battle station. I drew the planet's design in 3d....by hand; with pen and paper. The deck plans we used as maps for our games as well. I spent almost a year with my apartment looking like 2 parts drafting room and 1 part made science conspiracy lab. Boy did I love it.

[@hollowXwulff]

I used the 5elootshop to generate my players armor sets (they were already established/seasoned characters in the campaign) they each have like two abilities like extra spells and such, they barely ever use the armor abilities 😅

[@witchtale3159]

World building. Making a little to tons of lore for side characters. Putting lots of detail into most areas other than most trails and paths. Going to draw all the important characters, areas, and coolest scenes that play out during the campaign

[@justinn8541akaDrPokemon]

So I made a homebrewed "Spell of Organized Chaos". How it works: Roll a D10: Roll a 1-9, you can cast that level of magic. Also you can choose to do more spells of a lower level in exchange for adding a 2D6 plus spell casting modifier. If you roll a 10, you can only do cantrips, but you can cast 4 times the amount of spells. Roll a D20 to determine how many spells you can cast in said chaos. Roll a D6 to determine how many spells are chosen at random. If the D6 number is higher than the max amount of spells you can cast, you can choose to down cast the spell level or just allow all of your spells to be random. If spells casting is higher than the D6 number, you can choose whatever spells you want. Requirment: You have to have at least 10 levels in a spell casting class.

[@KainaX122]

To solve the maze issue, just make it so the destination isn’t on one of the walls. Put it in the MIDDLE of the maze so there’s no chance of that whole “follow the wall until you reach the exit” BS ruining your encounter

[@evanseifert8858]

This issue reminds me of back when I played the original Phantasy Star. The left wall was my dearest friend.

[@tonberryking42]

To note, if all the walls are connected, the follow the wall rule works. Even if you put the destination in the middle, rather than the edge. You need to make *disconnected* walls.

[@tyranavalon]

I spent 3 months crafting a world with a rich history with explanations for everything in the dungeon. The beginning of the campaign started in the abandoned warehouse for a research lab of an ancient high tech civilization. In the warehouse were large sealed crates (3ft x 3ft x 3ft) of various materials. I had even made random boxes be damaged. One shelf was various metals, iron, tin, copper, silver, and... gold. The campaign came to a screeching halt when the party spent 2 full sessions in the warehouse trying to get the 3x3x3 box filled with 50 lbs gold bricks down from a warehouse shelf 20 ft off the ground, before realizing there was no way they were going to be able to carry more than 2 or 3 bricks each out of the dungeon. All the while, the BBEG was hunting them down to recapture them.

[@3rduck735]

I simulated a full set of seven dice with just a single deck of playing cards, with some left over. First, I divided it into three stacks, the tens, the fours, and the sixes. The tens were the d10, d20, and d100, and contained the 1-10 of a red suit, and a black suit. When used as a d10, you take the value of the card. When used as a d20, you add 10 to the value of the card if it's a black suit, nothing if red. A d100 is two d10 draws, just like the dice. The fours were the d4 and d8. This had most of the remaining number cards and I even have two versions of this. These rules assume the stack goes from 1-8. As a d8, you take the regular value, of course. As a d4, you subtract four from anything above it. Alternatively, you could only use the 1-4 of two suits, and have the d8 add 4 depending on the suit, while d4 takes face value. In either case, there's leftover cards. The sixes are the d6 and d12. This stack contains all the face cards. As a d6, jack, queen, and king refer to 1, 2, and 3 respectively, and you can add 3 depending on the color. As a d12, it's instead the suits that refer to numbers, (for example, spade is 1, heart is 2, club is 3, and diamond is 4), then, if it's a king you add, 8, a queen adds 4, and a jack adds nothing. Really any way of assigning values to cards works, though. Make your own chart for d12 if you want. Maybe not over-engineered, since it came from a visit to a psych ward with no dice, and only one (complete) set of cards, but the with rulebooks nonetheless. I just think it's neat such a thing is even possible.

[@tigerfalco]

I have a campaign in the same setting of a book ive been off and on writing since middle school. In one campaign I came up with Biennial world popular event thats similar to the Olympics, always held in the commercial trade melting pot country of my world (if youre wondering, no its not like America, its based on 3 different cultures that basically have nothing in common other than my interest in their mythos). I came up with small tournaments of 3 different types (combat with powers, combat without powers, and an obstacle race) that had available same day sign ups for players to join and potentially win money. The overengineered part is that I researched average stadium sizes, attendance rates, and money exchange so that I could accurately describe all of those things to my players. I literally did micro-economics breaking down how much money the event brings in from attendance, how much money vendors could bring in to the event and how much their food would cost, and profit margins so that I could properly figure out how succesful the events are so that I could decide how much money my players and NPC's would earn depending on where they placed in the tournaments. If my players had any questions I could answer them lol. The world is the same as a book im writing so i figured my hyperfocus if anything woulsnt be a complete waste after one night cuz I could use it later maybe.

[@blakeetter280]

not the most impressive on this list but kinda funny: i made a city builder aspect to my last campaign, rather complex too as the players could pick crops to grow to make recipes for special products like alcohols. i started tuning this and had it mostly done when the 2024 handbook dropped and i found the Bastions section which is just way better. so yeah, scrapped a fair bit of work lol. I still kept a few buildings with some changes cuz i think they fit bastions well.

[@StevenStumpf-k4z]

Ran a d20 Future game in college. Made character sheets for all of the players possible needs. Thus, each player had 15 pages. Just in case.

[@Orcawsom]

i put my party on trial, with a pseudo ace attorney system where you use persuasion/intimidation/insight to press witnesses, investigation/perception checks to check evidence for clues, took certain key items from their inventory to be the court record set of items that were valid to present. it's over engineered because the amount of different possible routes and logic i have to account for is insane and reminds me that ace attorney itself is a linear VN with specific prompts, not only that but to make sure all the planning didn't go to waste i had to make sure the actual incident had some key events it hit on so it was a bit railroady.

[@jesternario]

The most complicated thing I did was my original version of the spell point system for AD&D. It gave large arbitrary numbers, and spells had large arbitrary costs to cast. Like you'd gain 25 points each level and a 1st level spell cost 16, a 2nd level 43, etc. Now I just do Con mod + Spell Mod + level, and each spell costs the level you cast it at to cast. much simpler.

[@C_0_N]

Turned my Drakewarden Ranger into an unhinged badass in character by; -Alerting the Party to a Drow Bandit raid during his time to watch. -Having Hunter's Mark be a reflavor like it was a switch of sorts. -Voice acted his crashout sadism. With many redflag lines that scared the Drow scout he targeted in general -When the drow scout threw down Darkness to run, the Hunter's mark was still active, so my character was able to scare the absolute shit out of the Drow. Said Drow saw bright ass orange eyes and saw them lower before he launched himself out of the darkness with his Drake companion moving to flank. His speech of how her cowardice was despicable scared her more. -My character got flanked by the lead, took 4 attacks. But the crashout was saved by his giant barbarian party member's kick for the scout that flanked. -Got even more unhinged and continued the crashout with a flaming breath weapon. Telling his Drake Companion that short rib was on the menu. -Even though he didn't kill anything. The crashout was remembered because of how I played the character prior to combat. Said character has the attitude of Link and Geralt with some other quirks that are coming out slowly. So to see someone who is relatively not that forward with his emotions and is nice to most beings go unhinged and sadistic without second thought was a shocker to the party. Add the fact that he was unphased and when asked "how many beings have you killed" He says "Plenty." In a nonchalant tone AS HE'S CLEANING CAMP AND HIDING THE BODIES you got someone who will go the distance for their newly acquired acquaintances.

[@BeaglzRok1]

I ported Heroes of Might and Magic 3 for a battle that had hundreds of combatants. An orc warlord would recruit X creatures each week to his army from a set population of the area he's from. The party had sent scouts to look for a villain that escaped, and the next morning they would return to inform the party that they've found an orc building up forces after they'd decimated the competition (what they wouldn't know is said villain was mind-controlling the orc to do so). Instead, the party got drunk, realized that the villain was a legal target for Sending since they were acquainted, and provoked them into sending the orc to destroy a small town. The party then scrambled to the local leaders asking for help and being sent to the front line to make up for their mistake, bringing soldiers with them and hoping they'd make it in time. I set it up so that each statblock formed a unit three sizes larger than the base creature, with a unit pool that decreases with each creature killed and rollover damage. To represent the fact that they're a front of a battalion, they would get an additional attack each round as long as they were above half their units. The intent was to have the party focus on the enemy leaders or singular strong enemies while the piles occupy themselves, or have AoEs like Entangle be at maximum effectiveness, while dissuading the impulse to wade into a mass of dudes and get torn apart. It led to six hours of calculating what damage with each stack of dudes on both sides did to each other, keeping track of their HP, how they moved, whether or not a unit would rout after losing a lot of dudes, coming up with the probability that a "lost" allied soldier was not dead but instead just severely wounded. All of the DM things and more across no fewer than two dozen tokens on a massive map. I have sworn never to use those rules for a campaign again. Funny enough, one of the players is starting an Only War game, and wanted my advice on how to make our regiment fight other regiments without drowning out the party's agency. I suggested that you just have faceless AoEs to represent armies shooting each other that will try to stab you to death if you get close, with a manpower pool that depletes by X dudes per round. The only tokens are the party members and key figures like commanders and/or a critical mass of normal dudes that would lead to the enemy routing, retreating, or crippling their manpower depletion rate if taken down by the party's efficiency.

[@MeepChangeling]

I'm not a DM... for this one, but it absolutely counts as over-engineered. The DM gave the party an artifact which allowed us to mix and match existing spells "parts". So you could take the AoE from Fireball, apply it to magic missile's effect, and have everything in that AoE hit by a magic missile. There were some restrictions, the biggest of which was we had to have access to the spells we wanted to mix, and all spells used for mixing were consumed. IE a cast of fireball and a cast of magic missile had to be used to make the mixed spell. Furthermore, the mixer could write to a scroll, but you couldn't learn a mixed spell permanatly. So what I did with this is I had the party druid donate a control weather for that massive AoE, and put a Telekenesis spell with it with a selective meta magic which made it only move... the air. This spell simply created a 8 mile radius vacuum for, well, a round. Put that bitch on a scroll for "just in case". I used it in a city when we were supposed to fight one of the big bad, and wound up having to do some napkin math to show the GM what that would do. TLDR; the pressure wave of that much atmosphere being forced out, then back in, is equivalent to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Twice. In rapid succession. Even if you ignore that because "pressure wave" is not a damage type in D&D, being blown into walls by 4800 mph wind certainly is. No matter how you slice it, that city became a pile of rubble.

[@moonbro5381]

Does anyone know if the Skyrim campaign guy released his system anywhere?

[@inukithesavage828]

Sowm of these spund lit

[@Ike_of_pyke]

The Lost woods and they didn't use the lost woods soundtrack in it *shakes head in disgust*

[@thomaswang2223]

A Black Forest? With a Beast inside? “Then, in the middle of all the chaotic cries, someone shouted: ‘It’s the monster! A big, terrible monster lives in the dark, Black Forest!’” *second warning starts playing*

[@plastikrappavevo4786]

(TL;DR at the bottom) I think the most complex thing I planned out has to be one of the penultimate battles to a 3 part campaign I developed, which had completely homebrewed mechanics along with a branching path to the finale. For the context, the players had to stop all of the various Planes of Existence from crashing into each other and causing chaos, and they had discovered that the BBEGs were hiding in a fortress in the very center of Limbo. Because the worlds were colliding, Limbo was located quite close to sections of the Astral Plane, and so the Githyanki and the Githzerai were engaged in fighting due to their centuries old feud. Essentially, the players had to choose whether they wished to support the Githyanki or Githzerai so they could get transportation to the center of Limbo. Whichever side they chose affected various parts of the final battle, as well as affecting the penultimate battle. - If they supported the Githyanki, they would be able to reach the center much faster because of their Red Dragons, meaning the villains were less prepared and had less reinforcements. However, this also meant the heroes were going in unprepared, and did not know everything about the powers and weaknesses of the BBEGs. - If they supported the Githzerai, they would use their psionic abilities to shape Limbo and create a path, while also helping the heroes with their wisdom. This path was the slower way, which meant that the villains had more preparation time and that the world was more fractured, meaning more unpredictability. However, the heroes are more prepared if they take this way, learning about the layout of the fortress as well as a fatal weakness of the BBEG that they could attempt to exploit. If that wasn't enough, the path they chose also completely changed the battle they get into right before entering Limbo's center, and each battle had its own unique mechanics to it. - If with the Githyanki, the players and their allies would be attacked on their Dragons mid-flight by a Mind Flayer Nautiloid holding an Elder Brain. The Mind Flayers had heard about the BBEG being in Limbo, and wished to harness its power for themselves to spread their hivemind. So, the players would all control their own Red Dragon with unique mechanics, fighting off the Flayers while trying to destroy the ship. The ship had different sections all with their own health, and the players had to figure out how best to disable the ship with their Dragons and their own abilities. Players could also hop off the Dragon onto the deck, which was risky, but also provided support to the Dragons by disabling the ships parts from the inside. The fight would go on and eventually end with the Elder Brain grafting itself onto one of the Dragons to make an Elder Brain Dragon for an aerial dogfight. - Meanwhile, if with the Githzerai, the party had to face off against the various Slaad led by Ssendam and Ygorl, the Slaad Lords of Insanity and Entropy respectively. Ssendam and Ygorl each knew that the party wanted to stop the world colliding, and they each wished for it to continue because it would spread more chaos, insanity, and destruction. However, they didn't wish to work together because of their Chaotic inclinations, and so the fight was something of a free for all between the 2 slaad forces and the party. The Githzerai are known for their psionic abilities which let them shape and control the chaos of Limbo, and so they work together to create giant mobile fortresses made out of psionic energy for the party to control. These had entirely unique actions and essentially functioned as a kind of Tank, allowing the players to blast Slaad with psychic energy, ram them with the walls, or attack with their own abilities from within. The players had to be careful to protect the Githzerai maintaining the tanks though, and make sure to keep each part up and running. TL;DR, I gave players a split path and essentially created 2 unique encounters with completely new mechanics knowing that one of the battles would never be seen because of the branching path, as well as heavily modifying the final battle depending on the path taken.

[@robert.7230]

So what did they actually pick or are they not there yet?

[@plastikrappavevo4786]

@@robert.7230 They ultimately went Githzerai, mostly because they felt it was the safer option traveling through Limbo. I've been planning to see if I could run this campaign with another group I have though, so I might be able to see if that group chooses differently. Assuming that plan doesn't fall through of course.

[@T3nch1]

Adapting the Pokemon world, more over the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon format, into a D&D 5e format. This includes but is not limited to; -Formatting Base/IV/EV stats into a 7 stat block. -Reorganizing skills to accommodate the absence of the CHA stat. -Formatting attacks to function within a dice system. -Formatting damage into a semi-simplified system. For example: Tackle is a base 40 attack with 100% accuracy, because it's a Physical it is considered melee and has a range of 5ft. You don't need to roll for an attack because it has 100% accuracy but it only does 1d4+STR - your targets DEF. Slam is a base 80 attack with 75% accuracy so to attack you'd have to roll a D100 and get below a 76. Buffs and debuffs, priority, status effects, weakness and resistance types, all of it needs to make sense and *not* be wildly unbalanced. It's no where near a playable state at the moment and it's so completely over engineered that I don't know when it will be. But such is making a Pokemon TTRPG where the players are the Pokemon.

[@yoshikoizumi7851]

have you ever heared of PTU? full name "Pokemon Tabletop United" it can be quite fun, but I personally got overwhelmed having my Trainer Character Sheet and additionally a seperate character sheet for every single Pokemon in my arsenal, BUT since Pokemon are their own characters you can really easily play Mystery Dungeon with the system also, each Pokemon has Athletics, Perception and so on already in the Pokedex it wouldn't be DnD anymore obviously, but still a neat system

[@T3nch1]

@@yoshikoizumi7851 I have not but that doesn't sound like the concept I'm going for.

[@marshallrobinson1019]

I'd like to know: DMs and Players, for those of you who either had a party go full murder hobo OR went murder hobo yourselves, do you remember what level the party was? Also, were you playing using only xp advancement?

[@jasonroberts7558]

Any time the word heist is mentioned in a game. We plan and plan annnnd boom! Monster guarding the vault staring right at the only entrance to the room. Stealth mission is now a series of magical explosions and death rattles. Good times.

[@mr.h1803]

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